<p>Hey y'all,</p>
<p>I was recently accepted into Yale off the waitlist! Nevertheless, I have grown very attached to Penn and the concept of the "social ivy." I am interested in global health and policy, journalism, international relations (to Asia) and economics. Can anyone give me any advice? </p>
<p>I'll be visiting Yale soon.</p>
<p>Go with personal preference and fit. They’re both great schools, and you can’t go wrong either way (although those obsessed with lay prestige may tell you that Yale is inherently better, even though it isn’t :rolleyes:).</p>
<p>Yale, definitely. (:</p>
<p>Both are good schools, Yale may be a tad better for IR, but Penn is great for journalism.</p>
<p>Yale by a longshot, and it’s not even close, unless you got into wharton and are 100% sure about doing finance afterwards. </p>
<p>Yale is an amazing undergrad school: great campus, very intellectual student body, strong in every subject, and a cohesive student body due to the residential college system. Unlike Penn, which is filled with pre-professional students who are obsessed with landing a job at goldman or blackstone, Yale is for intellectuals who actually want to learn and debate serious issues. It’s a fun cerebral undergrad experience. And plus, would you rather tell people that you go to Yale or a school that gets mistaken with a big 10 state school? It’s a no brainer dude.</p>
<p>^ Ignore Arbitrageur. He/she is an anti-Penn ■■■■■ who has tried to flame this forum before (including in another thread today) with his/her ridiculous anti-Penn nonsense, which is totally lacking in either factual basis or credibility.</p>
<p>45 Percenter, what part of my claim is factually inaccurate? It’s a fact that Penn is extremely pre-professional due to the pervasive influence of wharton. It’s a fact that Yale has strong humanities/social science programs as well as a much more cerebral campus life. If you don’t believe me go and visit both schools instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks. And finally, there is no doubt that Yale is more prestigious; it’s a name brand that is recognized everywhere while people frequently mistake Penn for Penn State.</p>
<p>^ Your post is full of crass generalizations and stereotypes about both schools, but what really undercuts your credibility is the trollish anti-Penn flaming represented by the thread you started in the Penn forum today, combined with a similary trollish anti-Penn thread you started last December:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1340069-penns-gaming-us-news-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1340069-penns-gaming-us-news-rankings.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1253940-inferiority-complex-non-wharton-penn.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1253940-inferiority-complex-non-wharton-penn.html</a></p>
<p>It’s obvious that you only come into the Penn forum to engage in anti-Penn flaming and ■■■■■■■■, and you have no credibility.</p>
<p>Not only is Yale arguably more social and less cliquey than UPenn considering the lesser influence of Greek life and greater influence of Residential Colleges, but it is also superior in the fields you listed. I will be going to Yale in the fall and have no regrets for choosing it over several comparable schools-and for the sciences. Good luck. Boola Boola!</p>
<p>
Not really. For example, in Economics, Penn was ranked at #8 in the old NRC rankings, and Yale was ranked at #6:</p>
<p>[NRC</a> Rankings in Economics](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area36.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings in Economics)</p>
<p>Similarly, Penn’s Economics program was ranked at #9 in the most recent US News ranking and Yale’s was ranked at #6:</p>
<p>[Best</a> Economics Programs | Top Economics Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/economics-rankings]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-humanities-schools/economics-rankings)</p>
<p>Those are insignificant differences, especially given that these are rankings of graduate programs. At the undergraduate level, the difference between the Economics departments of these two schools is even more insignificant.</p>
<p>Penn is also extremely strong in global health, and while it doesn’t have a journalism program per se (and neither does Yale), its Annenberg School for Communication is the home of Factcheck.org, and offers undergrads many extraordinary programs and courses that are highly relevant to journalism. Further, Penn’s English department offers a journalism concentration within the English major:</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Major Concentrations Literature, Journalism and Print Culture | University of Pennsylvania | Department of English](<a href=“http://www.english.upenn.edu/Undergrad/major/concentrations/ljp]Undergraduate”>Literature, Journalism and Print Culture | Department of English)</p>
<p>and Penn’s Kelly Writers House is an amazing resource for those interested in all kinds of writing, including journalism:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/education/05writers.html?pagewanted=all[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/education/05writers.html?pagewanted=all</a></p>
<p>[Kelly</a> Writers House - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Writers_House]Kelly”>Kelly Writers House - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>[Kelly</a> Writers House](<a href=“http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/]Kelly”>Kelly Writers House)</p>
<p>Penn also has terrific South and East Asian Studies programs.</p>
<p>Again, these are both fantastic schools, and both have tremendous strengths that would match the OP’s interests. It’s really a matter of personal preference and fit (except, of course, for high school students obsessed with lay prestige :rolleyes:).</p>
<p>I’ll be visiting Yale tomorrow to check out fit and feel, but unfortunately many students have already left for break. I’m trying very very hard to put prestige and name aside, but it’s really difficult to do so when your parents never went to college. And are Asian. </p>
<p>Are there any upsides and downfalls to the Penn education or the Yale education? From what I hear, Yale is more humanities oriented whereas Penn is more pre-professional. While I don’t want to graduate without some knowledge of the classics and of philosophy, I don’t want to graduate without any useful life skills. Can anyone speak about this?</p>
<p>AmericanSushi, go to yale. Aside from the prestige and respect you will gain for the rest of your life by having gone to yale, here are the following reasons. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yale is indeed more cerebral. Awesome humanities, great intellectual environment, and if you get into directed studies freshman year, you will have a heck of a liberal arts education. </p></li>
<li><p>Arguably the best student newspaper in the country. If you have any interest in journalism this is the place. </p></li>
<li><p>There is no contradiction between a liberal arts education and a practical one. You can do a double major with say econ and international relations or the interdisciplinary ethics, politics, economics program. If you take enough math/econ type of classes and get a good gpa, you will be very competitive for finance recruiting if that’s what you end up wanting to do. And of course there’s always law school, which is just gpa+lsat; your major won’t matter for that. Yale’s placement into top law schools is second only to Harvard. </p></li>
<li><p>Yale’s residential college system results in a very cohesive tight-knit undergrad social life. Penn is very fractured due to the lack of such a system as well as the divisions between various schools and programs. Penn’s organization is awful; you have 4 schools (wharton, college, engineering, nursing) and all types of dual and joint programs like huntsman, m&t, vagelos, and god knows what else they’re cooking up in west philly. This inherently leads to a pre-professional environment in which students from certain prestigious programs look down on others while others try desperately to get access to the right resources. It’s sad when penn college kids envy wharton and badly want to be there. At Yale, it’s just one undergrad school. People are united. They have different majors but no ******** superiority complexes based on what program you’re in. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Go to Yale. You will not regret it. Penn, unless you’re dead set on business and get into wharton, is a very mediocre undergrad experience.</p>
<p>Arbitrageur, Penn is not “mediocre” whatsoever. It’s a top 10 school in the nation. Say you’re right about the pre-professional attitude at Penn- so what? Maybe OP will like that atmosphere, maybe not. BUT that pre-prof atmosphere is bunch of bull****. I have 4 friends and more alumni who went to Penn- it’s not predominantly pre-prof, it’s a mix of everything. OP, go wherever suits YOU best. SCREW Arbitrageur, use a better, more credible source that will truly reveal where you will fit best: Penn or Yale.</p>
<p>Arbitrageur is an irrational Penn-hater who knows nothing of what he/she says about the school, as his/her flame threads and posts reveal. Seriously, do yourself a favor and ignore this ■■■■■’s baseless nonsense.</p>
<p>These are both phenomenal schools, and you should go to the one where you think you would best fit and thrive, both academically and otherwise. Both schools are fantastic launching pads that will serve you and your interests well.</p>
<p>Any advice you get beyond that is, quite frankly, superficial hot air. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Can we get this ■■■■■ Arbitrageur off the forum? </p>
<p>Anyway they are both great schools. And no, Penn is not all pre-professional, especially in the fields you want to go into. Penn CAS is one of the best humanities school ever. I’m positive Yale’s humanities department is great too. Pick the one you think you will fit the best in.</p>
<p>Is money a factor? I’d probably choose the one that would get me into the least debt. Yale is very alluring though. I love the residential college system.</p>
<p>On that note, i just received my financial aid package. i visited yale today in the pouring rain and to be honest it wasn’t very enjoyable. nevertheless, the academics are superb and the sense of community is strong, two factors that i need in a college. yale offered me 10 grand more than penn, so it looks like i’ll be going to yale.</p>
<p>regardless of any potential trolls on this thread, i’d like to make clear the reasons why i decided to choose yale over penn:</p>
<ol>
<li>money</li>
<li>more teacher-student itneraction from what i hear</li>
<li>shorter distance from home</li>
<li>smaller school size, closely-knit community</li>
</ol>
<p>Sounds like good reasons to me. Congrats on your accomplishments and good luck at Yale! I’m sure you’ll love it. :)</p>
<p>Of course, you realize that Penn would have matched Yale’s financial aid package. But it sounds like that wasn’t the only reason for your choice.</p>
<p>Congratulations! Have a great four years!</p>
<p>45 Percenter, would Penn really match Yale’s financial aid? I don’t think Penn considers Yale a peer school and vice versa. I don’t mean to be rude but it seems unlikely that Penn has the money in the bank to compete with Yale with regards to financial aid.</p>